Texas malpractice caps: Readers react

Some reader reactions to Texas malpractice caps:

The best thing about the malpractice caps: According to the article, these changes all but ended lawyers’ ability to police hospitals and doctors for shoddy care. Thank goodness. Few lawyers have medical training, so they are simply not qualified to judge doctors or hospitals . . .
. . . A no-fault system would be a good solution, where, if legal action were required, specially trained judges with access to the best information would hear these cases, render judgment and bring some equal justice to the system.

Comments

Anonymous
Why did you ignore the first response, Kevin? Oh . . . silly me!
Now that I read it, it is clear that this loser is a trial-lawyer-John Edwards wannabe-single payor-line waiting-care rationing communist-socialist-Michael Moore loving-freemarket loathing-cookie hating-dog kicking-traitor-who feeds off the souls of infallible doctors . . . obviously.
Very objective, non-agenda driven omission, K. Thanks for making us all safer.
BLAME THOSE INSURANCE CARTELS
Re: “Is this change healthy? Debate still thrives over limit on damages in Texas malpractice suits,” Sunday news story.
There is not now, nor has there ever been, a malpractice crisis.
Your story briefly touched on the real causes of the crisis. Investments, where robber baron insurance companies actually make their money, were not giving the returns that they had seen in previous years. Premiums were raised to prop up their bloated profits, and the scare campaign was started in Texas.
So-called frivolous lawsuits are a myth. Attorneys, like any good businesspersons, do not take cases that cannot be won, just for the fun of it.
It is good that more doctors are coming to Texas and especially to smaller communities, but the real culprit was not malpractice. It was the insurance cartels and their lackeys in the Texas Legislature.
. . . can you believe this fascist hippie?
Anonymous
” Few lawyers have medical training, so they are simply not qualified to judge doctors or hospitals . . .”
No kidding. That’s why they have to hire OTHER doctors to testify.
Anonymous
The issue isn’t cost savings, it’s access. The “success” stories in the news articles revolve around towns that did not have physicians in a certain specialty, that now have physicians.
California, Indiana, a number of states have had tort reform for decades now, and somehow they survive with excellent medical care. Don’t know about Indiana courts, but California sure finds plenty to litigate over despite tort reform.
Anonymous
And states w/o “reform” have excellent medical care, however you want to define it.
Given that the number of practicing physicians in Texas has increased at a rate less than the overall rate of population growth, it’s hard to say what caused those rural areas all the sudden get specialists. Maybe there are new hospitals paying more money for them now. Maybe there are more people there to support another physician. Maybe those physicians moved from other rural areas.
Reaching conclusions based on anecdotes isn’t very useful. And it’s easy to declare something a success when the downside is so individualized. But when you’re the individual, it’s a damn big downside.
Anonymous
Yeah, hard to tell. Heh.
Anonymous
It’s not “reform”, it’s reform. It’s the law of the land.
Scare quotes are for when you have doubt. Like legal “ethics”.
Anonymous
No, it’s pretty clearly “reform”, unless of course you’re the executive of an insurance company.
You’re not, are you?
Anonymous
Actually, I’m channeling the executive of an insurance company.
It worked so well for John Edwards.
In lieu of science, that is.
Anonymous
At least one doctor who saw the evidence disagrees with you. Maybe you’re channeling your inner Bill Frist, though.
Anonymous
And that doctor disagrees with most doctors these days.
Of course, all it takes is to bamboozle the jury. I’ll give Edwards credit, he’s good at that.
Anonymous
Most doctors have reviewed the evidence in that case and have reached a conclusion? Really? Have you?
Or are you all little mini-Frists? Or maybe you make all your diagnoses without meeting the patient or reviewing the records? No wonder you want immunity for your sloppy work.
Anonymous
I don’t want immunity. I want a cap on noneconomic damages.
Texas shows, again, the advantages of the tort reforms.
Slowly but surely we’ll get them in other states.
Anonymous
How does Texas show that? By getting reductions in rates like every other state in the union? By getting more insurers like every other state in the Union.
Slowly but surely you’re trading juries for a no-fault scheme and becoming government employees. If you had a little more sense and perspective you’d know that.
Anonymous
“I don’t want immunity. I want a cap on noneconomic damages.”
Why? Because a number chosen by insurance lobbyists is more fair than a number chosen by people who have heard the facts of the case? Because it gives you a warm fuzzy to screw those who don’t work, like children?
Here’s a deal – you let insurance lobbyists get a cap, and we’ll let Ralph Nader decide the standard of care! What a deal.
Anonymous
re”No kidding. That’s why they have to hire OTHER doctors to testify”
The operative word is “hire”. Do you really think you get unbiased results when you pay them to speak? Are you really that stupid? You JD’s would never survive in the research world where you have to show evidence for the crap you shovel.
Anonymous
So the defense experts aren’t unbiased and we can’t trust their testimony? Why should we trust you then? After all, you think every claim that is successful costs you money in terms of premiums. How can your take on the case, even if it was a really good newspaper article, be unbiased?
Anonymous
By getting more insurers like every other state in the Union.
Not true.
New York, no new insurers. New Jersey, no new insurers. I don’t know if I can trust this or that expert witness, but I KNOW I can’t trust you because your assertions are known to be false.
BTW, show me a jury that has seen all of the medical records. They don’t see them, and the bits they do see, if any, are minimal. I can just see the jurors poring over the stacks of charts, reading the notes and interpreting the lab and radiology data. Oh yeah, and when they disagree with the radiology results or pathology reports, they review the films and slides for themselves. Again, you make false assertions that we docs are making judgements that we believe are beter than a panel of jurors who have seen ALL of the medical records. They haven’t, so their conclusions are just as suspect.
Sure, they rely on “experts” who purportedly have seen the records, but the experts disagree. So again, the value of seeing the records is questionable, and these decisions are being made on factors _other_ than the records, i.e. sympathy for the plaintiff, likability of the defendant or plaintiffs attorney or a particular expert.
Anonymous
“BTW, show me a jury that has seen all of the medical records.”
Every jury does. You may not think they take their jobs seriously, but that’s just your uninformed opinion. Everyone who has tried cases thinks they take them very seriously, and that’s why both sides work very hard to make sure they have all the evidence in front of them.
As for your claims on what they make their decisions, on, that’s nothing more than rank speculation. Is that how you make all your decisions?
Anonymous
Ok – Then give them all of the evidence, written expert reports, and written testimony and let them do their jobs. They do not need to see the plaintiffs face or the defendants, or the experts or the attorneys, since that data is not evidence, and shouldn’t have an impact on their decisions, right?
Cross examine your witnesses in front of a court reporter and give the transcript to the jury. Why not? Any impact that those features that are removed would have is simple my speculation.
Anonymous
And by the way, you’re right about New York. My mistake. Although NY has different reasons for its closed market:
http://www.ins.state.ny.us/acrobat/medmal2.pdf
“D. Regulatory Environment in New York
All carriers agreed that there is a significant amount of medical malpractice insurance regulation in New York as compared with other states. While some felt that this regulation had stabilized the marketplace over the last ten years, others felt that it has also prevented carriers from responding to marketplace demands for innovative insurance programs. Several carriers advised that they had been approached by managed care entities for insurance, but because of the Insurance Department’s restrictions on premiums, limits of liability, and coverage, they were unable to prevent the loss of that business to the surplus lines market.
They felt that the Insurance Department should be more responsive to new insurance
products and should give more weight to an insurer’s underwriting judgment in setting rates for these products.
The Insurance Department will undertake a review of its procedures with regard to this
issue.”
Anonymous
“They do not need to see the plaintiffs face or the defendants, or the experts or the attorneys, since that data is not evidence, and shouldn’t have an impact on their decisions, right?”
They need to see the experts to establish the standard of care. Or if, for example, a physician altered the records and they have to prove it. The experts’ opinions absolutely are evidence.
They need to see the plaintiffs and defendants so that they can establish the damages and weigh the parties’ credibility. The medical records won’t tell you the extent of the damages. And, the medical records don’t always tell everything. I’m sure you’ve called a colleague to fill in the blanks from the medical records before, correct?
Anonymous
You are correct of course, and reinforce my point, that it is not ALL about the medical records.
Decisions are made on things other than those facts, as I asserted, and you confirmed this. Therefore it is not “rank speculation” that jurors make decisions based on things other than the objective evidence.
BTW, I wasn’t asserting in my illustration that the experts’ testimony should be exlcuded, but that their appearance, manner of dress, dialect, ethnic appearance, etc. could be.
Anonymous
“You are correct of course, and reinforce my point, that it is not ALL about the medical records.”
I never claimed it was ALL about the medical records. But I would think those would be the starting point and I have no idea how you can condemn a jury’s decision when you’ve never even seen the records. Every lawyer who does this that I know sends the records off to a consulting expert on every case before they do anything else.
Anonymous
No, you claimed that my assertion that factors other than the medical records and objective evidence were used by the jury in decision making was “rank speculation”.
Clearly it is not.
Anonymous
“these decisions are being made on factors _other_ than the records, i.e. sympathy for the plaintiff, likability of the defendant or plaintiffs attorney or a particular expert.”
No, I claimed this statement was rank speculation. Which it is.
Anonymous
Well, it’s the law of the land in Texas.
But there’s always other targets for the trial bar.
They can try for the fifty million for bad dry cleaning.
Anonymous
Actually, that was a judge who filed that case. Once again, you’re wrong. Doesn’t it get old?
Anonymous
I know full well he was a judge. Assuming the judge has a law degree, but even if not, it’s a possible new “ambulance” for you to chase.
Like the saying about lawyer jokes. Lawyers don’t think they’re funny, and non-lawyers don’t think they’re jokes.
I don’t imagine the dry cleaner thought that was funny. And as a doctor I’m not surprised to see it.

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